Stalin's Barber

by Paul M. Levitt

  Dimitri put a few rubles on the bed. “For your pains. And just remember: Spying is a dangerous business.”

  When the brother and sister left the house later, they did so in full confidence that Vera would not be rummaging through their rooms. So distraught was she, and in so much pain, that without her husband’s knowing it, she raided his vodka chest and poured herself a full glass that she downed in three gulps. That night, when Arkady climbed into bed next to her, she was snoring like a regular sot.

  The two Moscow scofflaws easily found the clinic with the help of a friendly trolley conductor. They circled outside, fearful that their names might have already been forwarded to the security detail. Walking around the complex, they noted exits and entrances, including the security guards at the iron gate that opened into the garden, the site of the cottage. Dimitri could see several ways to enter the clinic, but felt that each had its drawbacks. Ideally, he hoped not only to avoid detection but also to have Alexei in tow. If that meant killing Alexei’s mistress, so be it. Nothing was too extreme to maintain the integrity of the family.

  Riding a trolley car back to the boardinghouse, they whispered.

  “You won’t forget the stratagems and jargon that I taught you in the truck coming down here? Every secret policeman uses them.”

  “Don’t you remember Galatians?”

  At nine years old, she had recited all of it by heart and won the church memory contest.

  “We ate well that night to celebrate,” he said, recalling with satisfaction the roast pork and salted cucumbers. “You did pack the uniform I gave you?”

  “I even had Resonia alter it.”

  She had also packed old clothes that would fit in with the other poorly dressed people, like those in the trolley, and a few dinner dresses that she could not bear to part with. But had her fastidious brother done his homework and manufactured all the necessary papers?

  Taking her hand, he gently said, “Yes, but we must act quickly.” He knew that in two days they would have to meet their prearranged driver, who would be moving them north.

  The following morning, Natasha entered the clinic dressed in a police uniform that had once belonged to a former NKVD code breaker, a woman, dying of lung cancer, who had gladly bartered it for a pail of potatoes and two loin chops. Dimitri had decided that given the Soviets love of medals, he would pin a few of his own on her chest. At the front desk, she asked the clerk to summon the director. Leonid Basmanaya appeared shortly. She knew the Marxist catechism for questioning prospective criminals. Dimitri had told her to use it on the director. The formula was really quite simple. The presiding officer proceeded on the basis that it is not what the person has done that determines guilt or innocence, but who the person is. The good Marxist interrogator always looked for clues in one’s biography. If Basmanaya could be made to sweat, she felt certain of success.

  Natasha introduced herself as having come from Moscow to conduct a chistka in the Voronezh area to root out passive party members.

  “In this clinic,” Basmanaya proudly declared, “you will find only active party loyalists, like myself.”

  “I’d prefer if we talked in your office.”

  “Of course.”

  The clinic director settled into his desk chair, picked up his phone, and told his assistant, “No calls!”

  Without being asked, Natasha seated herself on Leonid’s leather couch, one of the perquisites of his position. She removed a pad and pencil. “Tell me, Comrade Basmanaya, about your own background.”

  “I was born in Kharkov and went to school in Kursk.”

  “Your class, comrade, what class are you from?”

  “I first studied epidemiology and then hospital administration.”

  Folding her arms, Natasha said, “Please, comrade, do not pretend to misunderstand me. From which social class did you come?”

  “I’ve already been cleared. My record is spotless.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  Basmanaya looked around, as if hoping to be saved. From a drawer, he removed a tin of mints, offering one to Natasha. She declined. “My father fashioned wooden toys,” he said. “Nested dolls were his specialty. He was a master of the art. His work was widely sought.”

  “By royalty?”

  “I can’t be sure.”

  Natasha smiled skeptically. “Hmm, I wonder.”

  “About what?”

  “Your uncertainty.”

  “His matryoshka dolls went mostly to shops. Did royalty patronize those shops, who can say?”

  “Please, comrade, don’t toy with me!” She liked her own pun. “The poor can’t afford rich playthings. Did you live in a house?”

  He knew not to volunteer any information. Speaking to Leshin was one thing; the police another. Silence never betrayed. “Yes.”

  “Servants?”

  “We had a young girl who helped with the chores.”

  Natasha faithfully copied his words, which might prove useful in freeing Alexei. A nervous Basmanaya wiped the perspiration from his forehead and popped another mint. He could smell his own acrid sweat. “So you had one servant,” said Natasha, making a show of noting that fact.

  What Leonid said next derailed Natasha’s well-planned catechism.

  “My mother was dying of tuberculosis and needed help around the house. She had been a teacher. Chemistry. In a secondary school.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I’ll be brief. Your wife?”

  “Surely you know she manages a state shoe factory. Is it not in your papers?”

  “Sometimes our information is dated. Family origin?”

  “My grandparents lived in Arkhangelsk. They were furriers and traded with the trappers.”

  “So they were in a commercial business,” she said, making further notes, “which they undoubtedly lost in the Civil War.” Before Basmanaya could respond, she asked, “Which side were they on?”

  “Initially the Whites, but when they understood the democratic reforms the Bolsheviks wished to introduce, they donated their life savings to the great cause.”

  “Why didn’t you finish medical school?”

  Basmanaya smiled, aware that his answer would serve him well.

  “The Whites burned down the college.”

  “The swine! Sorry to hear that.”

  She would soon have to ask the most important question of all. But she’d wait just a little longer.

  “So,” she said, “you changed your field of study to medical administration. I assume you attended a state school.”

  “Yes, it specialized in administration of all sorts. In those days, the country desperately needed managers and directors and engineers to help organize the mighty Soviet projects being launched.”

  “We still need them. Tell me, comrade, how would you describe your current profession? Yes, I know that you’re the clinic director, and I’m aware of all the good work of the clinic . . .”

  A surprised Basmanaya blurted, “Even our spy program?”

  Natasha paused to absorb what she’d just heard. The clinic was engaged in secret government work. If Alexei was a part of it, she and Dimitri would find extricating him from this place far more difficult than they had imagined, and fraught with far greater danger than would attend the abduction of a civilian physician. With an incurious look, she pretended that she had known all along about the clinic’s work. But she still hadn’t learned whether Basmanaya could provide the key, literally and figuratively, to the door behind which Alexei was held. Delay was no longer possible. She had to ask now.

  “I need to inquire about one of your patients, Alexei von Fresser. His work, I imagine, is proving . . .” She deliberately paused in the hope that Leonid would supply the details. He did.

  “Unsatisfactory!” declared the impetuous Basmanaya.

  “Just as I expected. At least we can take satisfaction that he’s not part of the . . . secret work.”

  “Abs
olutely not! The man’s a madman. Why do you ask about him?”

  “We have unearthed a plot. At the moment, I’m not at liberty to discuss it. You will just have to trust me. His file, please!”

  While flipping through the pages she discovered that all the rumors were true. Alexei had distinguished himself as a doctor and then disgraced himself with a patient, one Rissa Binderova. He had chosen to cohabit with her on the grounds of the clinic, and the authorities had, in effect, encouraged this arrangement by housing them in the garden cottage, which was thoroughly bugged. The file even included selected wiretap recordings, most of which Natasha found to be tiresome, though she did pause over the ones bearing on the sexual congress of the two patients.

  “Comrade Basmanaya, in light of these files, I wish to see Alexei von Fresser.”

  “Now . . . here . . . in the office?”

  “At once. It is urgent.”

  Leonid rang through on his phone to the security guards. “Please bring to my office Alexei von Fresser.” Pause. “Yes, from the cottage.” Pause. “I know I promised, but tell him I won’t disturb him again.”

  Natasha requested that she meet him alone. “If we confront him together, he’ll undoubtedly try to divide us and sow distrust.”

  Basmanaya grinned as he exited, thinking that this young woman had been in the company of government types long enough to know all their trick questions and tactics. Lest he be suspicious, she asked that he leave the door open. When Alexei entered, he peered at Leonid’s desk. For a moment, he thought the room empty, failing to see his wife sitting to one side on the couch. She spoke first and in a manner that suggested she was wary of the room being bugged.

  “I suggest, Comrade von Fresser, that you choose your words carefully and hear what I have to say.”

  On seeing his wife, Alexei was initially dumbstruck. He looked around helplessly and then joined her on the couch, but at a distance. She studied his eyes for some hint of his feelings, and he wondered whether she saw the guilt in his face. For safety’s sake, she would have to talk in a coded language. From the files, she knew all about his love nest.

  “The Moscow office,” she said, “would like you to accompany me.”

  “Why?”

  “To right some old wrongs. The NKVD is prepared to give you a second chance. We would have to leave by tomorrow.”

  He shook his head no and nervously slid his hands up and down his legs, from thighs to ankles. An observer would have thought that he was massaging himself. And perhaps he was, in a way. The guilt he felt made his body feel like a twisted rope; and her presence merely tightened it more.

  He studied his feet. “I can’t leave my patients.”

  “From what I understand you have only one.”

  “She needs me.”

  “And you, her! We are offering you a chance to start again.”

  “It would be irresponsible, a violation of my medical training.”

  “Comrade von Fresser, you are living the life of a parasite.” She tapped her pen on her pad. “The state supports you, and what do you give it in return? Can you answer that question?”

  “If I save only one person . . .”

  “For whose sake: hers, yours, the state? We cannot be selfish about these matters. I urge you to reconsider.”

  “Ever since I started treating this patient I have been considering what is best for all concerned. The decision has not been an easy one. In the end, the state is very likely to liquidate us both. And yet . . .”

  “What if the NKVD generously offers to rehabilitate her as well? That is, she can come with you. What would you say then?”

  Alexei found himself stuttering. “Well . . . I’d . . . I’d . . . have to ask her.”

  Natasha looked around. She had no confidence in the security of Basmanaya’s office. “Can we speak privately outside?”

  “Of course, but it’s cold.”

  “I see you came here from your cottage in an overcoat. Wear it!”

  He led her to a side door that had a thick window looking out on the winter-blasted garden. For a moment, they stood silently watching the sun disappear. As they stepped outdoors, a small, white cloud appeared in the gray canopy and shone with a suffused phosphorescent luster. It seemed rooted in one spot, even though the wind had picked up. Was it her imagination or did the cloud suddenly fracture and flicker, sending streaks of red and yellow fire in different directions? Natasha and Alexei stared at the sky. Then the glowing cloud vanished; in its place, a large dark cloud moved in from the north, each second growing darker. Natasha put great store in omens and suggested they find a place inside the clinic to talk before the appearance of more celestial signs. Alexei teased her about which sign to credit, the pyrotechnical cloud or the black one. But she knew that this world merely prefigures another, and that God sees the truth, but waits. Since the greenhouse was the safest place in the clinic, he led her there and then to the shed, though with serious misgivings, because it had been the sacred site of Rissa’s recent road to recovery. Alexei introduced his wife to Lazar, who was privy, like everyone else, to the doctor’s living arrangements. He therefore excused himself, leaving the couple alone.

  At first, neither spoke nor moved. Suddenly, Natasha threw her arms around her husband and began to cry. He stood with his hands in his pockets, not for lack of feeling but a surfeit of embarrassment. When she put her mouth to his, he returned her embrace. The moment for both was made fecund with memory. As she swore her love, he could not help but admire her bewitching face, with its lustrous eyes and faultless skin and sensuous lips. She was still a beautiful woman, though her former carefree behavior seemed to have abdicated to weariness. Perhaps in his absence she had become the woman he wanted.

  “We can start over again,” she whimpered into his ear. Before he could reply, she flooded him with words. “We can go away. Finland. We can have children. An Ivan and an Alexandra. Your namesake.” She put her hands on his cheeks, her desperation now palpable. “My dearest, my darling, my sweetest, my husband beyond all compare. I will cook your favorite dishes for you. We will sit by the radio and listen to music. We will play cards and go dancing and take the children to the park. You can teach them to ski. You can have your own study. I won’t interrupt you. You’ll have your interests, and I’ll have mine. I promise never to complain that your nose is buried in a book. If you want to see operas and concerts, you’ll hear no complaints from me. I know how much you like chamber music. Go with your friends. I won’t protest. You’ll be glad to learn what I’ve been doing. I’ve been reading about the famous artists. Yelena got me interested. We can go to museums, and I can tell you all about Rembrandt and the other Dutch masters. I like them best. The modern painters leave me kind of cold. What about you?”

  But even if he had cared to reply, he had little chance, because she again suffocated him with her caresses and a flood of words. “We can walk hand in hand on the boulevard. Look at the shops. While you enjoy yourself at the bookstalls, I’ll try on shoes. Restaurants! Helsinki has good ones; at least that’s what mother says. I’m sure you’ll be able to work in a hospital. We’ll find an apartment. Pick out the furniture and drapes and kitchenware. You can have your own reading chair and a floor lamp that hangs over your shoulder like a tired tulip. You are smiling. ‘Tired tulip’ is something I read in a magazine. I thought it was cute, don’t you?”

  While she happily outlined her plans for their future, he grew weary of her sweetness and banal expressions. Her professions of love painfully brought to mind her unimaginative habits, her commonplace interests, her prosaic remarks, “I think it will rain today,” and her puerile questions, “How do you suppose Lyubka Grigoryevna can afford a pink parasol on her pension?” And just as dull people form a fraternity, imagination binds people fond of ideas. Alexei had learned that a union of minds was a treasured enjoyment. Natasha would never understand what attracted him to Rissa; it was not her fascinating looks and musical gifts, but her infinite intellectual v
ariety. If only Natasha knew how sick he was of the universal nattering, the fecklessness, the stupidity, and his need for the pure oxygen of inventiveness. Our lives, he wanted to say to Natasha, are too short not to spend them in lively company. And yet, Alexei lacked the will or the insensitivity to visit upon her any additional hurt, and therefore reluctantly agreed to the plan of escape, even if Rissa refused to leave also.

  By the time they had left the greenhouse, Natasha had made it clear that Dimitri would come for them the next day and that they should be ready. As Basmanaya approached, the husband and wife formally exchanged parting remarks. Once Alexei was gone, Natasha asked Leonid for Rissa Binderova’s file. Like any woman in Natasha’s position, she was particularly interested in seeing the photographic record, as well as the written one. What did this woman look like, this siren who had captivated Alexei? She assumed that they would shortly be meeting, but for the moment her vanity made her want to see if Rissa was as comely as she. Basmanaya produced a file with photographs and written reports. Natasha could see at a glance why this woman was worthy of her husband’s attention. But of greater interest than Rissa’s lovely face was the typed file, which began: “Her grandmother, unnamed, had an affair with Tsarevich Nicholas II in 1886. The affair ended before he was crowned, but the child of that affair was the mother of Rissa Binderova, who may prove to be a useful pawn in our dealings with the west, particularly Great Britain, where the late Tsar still has royal relatives.”

  Thanking Basmanaya for his “invaluable help,” Natasha left the clinic feeling that God had shown her competing omens, with truth triumphant. She couldn’t wait to reach the boardinghouse to tell Dimitri what she had learned. The woman they planned to free, Alexei’s current paramour, was none other than the granddaughter of Nicholas II’s Jewish mistress. A western expression came to mind. She would repeat it as soon as she relayed her news to Dimitri.

  “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!” she said, feeling as if she had found the Tsar’s grave.

  “But I never smoke,” Dimitri replied coyly when she repeated the phrase. “You’ve confused me with the Vozhd,” he said, immediately worried that such a comparison could earn him ten years in a camp.